Letter, Fred. Law Olmsted to [Edward Everett] HaleAuthors:Olmsted, Frederick LawDate: January 10, 1857Frederick Law Olmsted, travel writer and landscape architect, wrote from New York City to Edward Everett Hale, a member of the New England Emigrant Aid Company's Executive Committee. Olmsted commented that he had heard rumors that the more zealous antislavery supporters in Kansas were targeting west Texas as the focus of future free soil activity. Olmsted, in an expression of free soil and free labor ideology, expressed his support for such a plan. He declared that surrounding the slave states with free territory would lead to the ultimate decline of slavery.

Keywords:Antislavery perspective; Free labor; Free soil; Hale, Edward Everett, 1822-1909; Olmsted, Frederick Law, 1822-1903; TexasReminiscence, Account of obtaining Sharp's riflesAuthors: No authors specified.Date: unknownJames Abbott recalled his experiences as a free state activist who participated in several Territorial conflicts. This transcribed version of the events is either a copy of an original handwritten manuscript or a compilation based on a personal oral interview. Abbott related a brief history of the Territory's political conflicts between free state and proslavery men and recounted the events of his own trip back East to secure funds and rifles for the free state cause. His purchases included a mountain howitzer and 117 sharp's rifles, all of which were smuggled under cover of disguise back to Kansas Territory and into the arms of free state militia.